According to the audited financial results posted on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the bank earned a total income of Rs.4,044.49 crore in Q4 2015-16 compared to Rs.3,278.06 crore clocked in corresponding quarter of last fiscal, while total expenditure increased from Rs.2,427.55 crore to Rs.2,893.30 crore.

Defending the Delhi High Court order upholding its call drop penalty order of October 16, 2015, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) told an apex court bench of Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman that telecom service providers (TSP) must enhance their investment in infrastructure as they were earning huge revenues.

The high court’s February 29 judgment had come as it dismissed the TSPs’ plea for the stay of TRAI’s compensation policy, under which a rupee would be credited to the mobile users’ account for every call drop (restricted to three per day) starting January 1, 2016.

Assailing the contentions raised by the TSPs, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the court that there was huge gulf between the revenue being earned by the TSPs and the investments being made by them on augmenting the infrastructure.

If between 2010 to 2014, the revenue of TSPs has increased by 48 percent, the investment in infrastructure in wireless access service segment rose by only 4.6 percent from Rs.2,02,399crore in fiscal 2012-13 to Rs.2,11,691 crore in fiscal 2013-14, he said, adding that investment in telecom infrastructure in 2015 here was $5 billion where as in China it was $50 billion.

He noted that there was limited spectrum and it could not be that TSPs would go on adding to their subscriber base without making investments for improving the infrastructure. The attorney general quoted statistics showing that from 2010 to June 2015, the number of subscribers increased by 61.9 percent from 62.13 crore in 2010 to 100.6 crore in June 2015.

“You (TSPs) don’t spend on highway (spectrum) and you will not spend on infrastructure and cry far minuscule issue of call drop charge,” Rohatgi said meeting the contentions by the petitioner associations – Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and the Association of Unified Service Provider of India (USPAI) – which had challenged the TRAI notification.

Telling the court that penalty for call drop was least invasive way to deal with the call drop issue, he said that the government could have done much more, citing the case of China where 25 percent of revenue must be invested in infrastructure.

Rebutting the contention of the TSPs as to how could it be decided whether the call drop was network-related or user-related, Rohatgi said: “System has the capability, and that capability has been demonstrated and it can’t be said that user-related call drop could not be separated from network-related call drop.”

He placed before the court documents to demonstrate that different kinds of call drops are identified and recorded by the system.

Contesting the TSPs claim that it would be a financial burden on them, he said that the total number of call drops (outgoing) in the entire network was 800 crore in a year and if TSPs are made to compensate for all of them, then it would amount to Rs.800 crore per annum.

But after exempting the user related call drops, the amount of compensation would come to Rs. 512 crore, and get further shrunk after the capping the penalty to three calls a day, the court was told.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the 10th Mindmine Summit organised by Hero Corporate Services, he said: “India is changing and evolving for good every second. The government is working towards connecting nearly 2,50,000panchayats with optical fibres and very soon India will be home to 500 million smartphones. These initiatives are bringing people together for mutual growth.”

Citing numerous initiatives taken by the central government, he said: “One such initiative – virtual mobile networks – will help consumers not just get more choices for voice and data services, but also allow telecom companies to monetise the unused airwaves.”

The two-day summit will see participation of a mix of leaders from political, corporate and societal landscape.

NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant spoke about the importance of building world-class infrastructure to achieve and sustain 9-10 percent gross domestic product growth over the next few decades.

“India needs to plan and invest in mega transportation hubs which will ensure greater, faster and more efficient transportation of goods and people across the country,” Kant said.

On the contrary, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh expressed concerns over safeguarding the environment while aiming for higher GDP growth.

“Environment and sustainability will play major factors in Indian economic growth. Vulnerability of climate change in India is maximum; we need to manage these issues while trying to be the leaders in consumption and production,” the former union minister said.

Goyal, who is on a mission to drum up investments in the energy sector, told reporters here Thursday India will be the largest market for energy with its goal of quadrupling by 2030 the current consumption of 1,050 units per person. Savvy investors will see the opportunities India has to offer them in the energy as the United States, Europe and Japan are seeing an economic slowdown coupled with a lowering of demand because of greater efficiencies in consumption, he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set a goal of having 175 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy by 2022, of which 100 GW is to come from solar, Goyal said. India has made strides towards achieving that target and 21 GW of solar energy is to come on line over the next seven to eight months, he said.

He said that he had met investors in Britain and visited the London Stock Exchange to showcase the investment opportunities and was to hold discussions with investors here.

While India sought investments in all energy spheres, its quest for energy efficiency – and through it cleaner environment and carbon emission reduction goals – opened up other areas, he said. As an example, he cited the program to replace the 20 million agricultural pumps, many of them run on diesel, with more efficient and less polluting models, which could save the equivalent of 70 billion units of electricity.

Besides solar energy, India was also developing hydropower, power generation using waste water and waste, and wind power Cutting off finance for coal plants will be counterproductive for the environment as coal will continue to play an important role in helping meet the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of providing billions of people around the world needing access to power, Goyal said.

Despite the massive investments in renewable energy, India will also depend on coal especially for baseline needs to ensure power availability when other sources become unavailable, Goyal said.

If financing for newer plants are not available, developing countries will continue to run the old, inefficient and polluting power plants instead of upgrading to modern power generation plants that use use coal efficiently and cleanly, he said.

The World Bank and others providing development assistance to developing countries have announced policies that would stop funding coal and other fossil fuel-based electricity plants.

India was working with a university in Australia on clean coal projects, he said. New Delhi planned to collaborate with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on research on clean coal, he added.

Goyal said that India was taking a leading role globally in helping spread solar technology among developing countries through the International Solar Alliance it is spearheading with France.

Many of the developing countries have not yet been able to take advantage of their solar bounties because they lack the technologies and financing, Goyal said. With its advances in harnessing solar power, India was in a position to help them overcome these hurdles and for this had set up with France the International Solar Alliance, he added.

In January French President Francois Hollande and Modi laid the foundation stone for the ISA headquarters at Gurgaon. About 120 countries are participating in it.

On Friday Goyal and French Environment and Energy Minister Segolene Royale will be hosting a high-level meeting on the ISA on the sidelines of the signing ceremony for the Paris Climate Change agreement.

The settlement between Volkswagen and US Environmental Protection Agency, the state of California and consumers was announced on Thursday by US District Judge Charles Breyer at a hearing here, Xinhua news agency reported.

Breyer said the deal would allow consumers to sell their cars back to Volkswagen or get them repaired to meet the legally required emissions levels.

It also includes “substantial compensations” for consumers and investment on clean technologies to offset excess emissions.

The affected cars are VW’s 2-litre diesel passenger vehicles sold in the US between 2009 and 2015, during which the company used a “defeat device” to cheat on emissions tests and tried to cover it up.

Details of the settlement were not disclosed. Breyer set July 21 as the deadline for Volkswagen to settle with all the parties the specifics of the plan, including the amount of fines and compensations it should pay.

Hundreds of class-action lawsuits have been filed against the German automaker following its admission of emissions cheating last September. It also faces hefty US government penalties for violating pollution standards.

Analysts estimate that the cost of the final deal would far exceed the amount of money Volkswagen has set aside for the global costs from the scandal, which is $7.6 billion.

Worldwide about 11 million vehicles are involved in Volkswagen’s emissions cheating scandal and nearly 600,000 of them are in the US.

Earlier this year, the California Air Resources Board rejected the recall plan submitted by Volkswagen for 2-litre diesel cars sold in the state between 2009 and 2015.

The Embassy of India in Jakarta in association with the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) and the All India Meat and Livestock Exporters Association (AIMLEA), organised a ‘Roadshow on Indian Bovine Meat’ here on Thursday.

“The Ministry of Agriculture had deputed a country audit team to India in September 2015 to inspect abattoirs and research institutions, which confirmed that India has excellent mechanism of meat processing and quarantine control,” said Muladno, Director General of Livestock and Animal Health.

India has more than 50 slaughter houses which are above international standards. Based on this, Indonesian President Joko Widodo had signed a decree allowing ‘zone-based’ meat imports in March 2016.

Muladno added the Indonesian government is making efforts to open its market for Indian bovine meat by the Ramadan period.

“India has been trying for market access for Indian bovine meat in Indonesia since 1999. With the recent decree signed by President of Indonesia allowing ‘zone-based’ meat imports, India is expected to get a significant share of the Indonesian meat market as the bovine meat will be very competitively priced,” the Indian Embassy in Jakarta said in a statement.

The roadshow included a presentation projecting the strength of India as a consistent and quality supplier of bovine meat to Indonesia.

“India has a track record of 46 years in the export of de-boned and de-glanded frozen buffalo meat to 64 countries worldwide. 100 percent of the meat exported from India is prepared strictly in compliance with Islamic requirements and is genuinely Halal,” the statement added.

Users can send money to any of their BBM contacts using HotRemit without the complications of traditional money transfer.

“There is a growing appetite for mobile payment solutions and supporting mobile wallets, and HotRemit is another great example of how we are developing the BBM ecosystem to successfully integrate chat, social and commerce,” Matthew Talbot, senior vice president (BBM) at BlackBerry, said in a statement.

“HotRemit is committed to social financial transactions and adding more social features that simplify day to day mundane tasks,” added Jay Krishna, founder director, DigitSecure.

The BBM-enabled HotRemit app is available as a free download at BlackBerry World, Google Play and Apple App Store.